


Worry

by bluebeholder



Series: Writing About Video Games You Haven't Played [6]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Holding Hands, M/M, The Outsider Is Bad At Feelings, The Void
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-05 00:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12179730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Corvo gets knocked out in an alley and wakes up in the Void. He'd be more annoyed if this didn't mean he gets to spend time with the Outsider.





	Worry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adrift_me](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adrift_me/gifts).



> _I don't know what I'm doing with my life anymore_. Disclaimer: I have not played Dishonored. I have barely watched any cutscenes from Dishonored. All I know is what my friend has told me and what fic I have read. But I hope I've done these two justice! I'd like to think that I did.

They’re left of center, in that liminal space that only the Outsider ever seems to be able to occupy. The place where there is whale-song, echoing as if from the deep; the abyss that holds nothing and no one except the Outsider--and, sometimes, Corvo. 

“My dear Corvo,” the Outsider says, pale fingers curling around Corvo’s, “are you unhappy?”

He’s not a man of many words, never has been, and so he only shakes his head. He’s glad that he’s taken his mask off, so the Outsider can see his face. He’s preoccupied with what’s happening outside the Void, but he’s not unhappy by any measure. 

The Outsider tilts a smile at Corvo, faint, but present. It’s beautiful. He lifts Corvo’s hand and kisses the Mark there. Corvo shivers, desire flaring within him. “Unexpected, given your frown. You will never cease to interest me, my unpredictable one,” the Outsider murmurs, lips still against Corvo’s skin. Dry-mouthed, Corvo can only nod again, struck mute.

What drives this god? Corvo still doesn’t know. He may never know. Pleasure? Interest? Boredom? Loneliness? Out of every mortal in the world, why Corvo? Corvo, the man who had never bothered to turn a thought to prayers and gods until the Leviathan had stepped into his life. 

They walk side by side and hand in hand up a half-shattered staircase, floating over the blue emptiness. Corvo has long since gotten over his fear of walking here. He prefers not to walk alone, but even without the Outsider beside him, Corvo is well aware of his feet. The islands do not trouble him.

Overhead, in the deep blue of the Void, a whale swims gracefully. Its song resounds through the Void, a lonely call. The Outsider looks up at it, expression unreadable. Corvo sometimes thinks that he hears the same lonely whale-song behind the Outsider’s voice.

At the top of the stairs they come to a building, a pale reflection of the building that was Corvo’s goal in the real world. He’d ducked out of sight, stopping for a moment to consider his course of action. Someone had hit him over the back of the head--it’s rather stupid, how easily they’d caught him--and that was the last thing he remembered. More head trauma, to add to his collection. 

He’d awakened in the Void, and found the Outsider waiting for him. They’d walked here together. Corvo feels...steadier, with the black-eyed god at his side. He’s walking, for once, feet touching the ground. It seems to be a measure taken only for Corvo when they are alone.

“What will you do, when you arrive at your destination?”

“They’re traitors to the Empire,” Corvo says with a shrug. It’s a non-answer, but he knows well how the Outsider appreciates creativity and chaos. If he doesn’t answer properly, the Outsider’s interest is piqued, which is all that Corvo desires. 

The Outsider doesn’t laugh, because he never laughs. But he looks at Corvo for a long moment, head slightly tilted, and Corvo knows what that means. He likes it, likes to bring out such a reaction, likes to know that the Outsider chooses to show his affection only to Corvo. 

“I suspect you won’t kill them,” the Outsider says at last, as they leave the path to stand on the grass. “It does not seem to be your way.”

Corvo only smiles. It hasn’t been his way, in the past; it might be today, if it keeps the Outsider’s pitch-black eyes fixed on him a little longer. That’s the giveaway, really, the clue that tells anyone watching that the Outsider is not human. He stares. He fixes people with his gaze and pins them down. It’s a terrifying feeling. 

Then again, if hate and love are two sides of the same coin, then terror and wonder are the same way. 

The grass bends under their feet, exactly as grass in the ordinary world does. It feels strange, when he knows that he’s no longer standing in the world, when he knows that his presence in this place is only permitted by the Outsider. It’s a violation of natural laws that Corvo never considers, unless he’s standing in the Void.

But Corvo doesn’t dwell on it for too long. If he does that, he’ll start to consider the paradoxical fact that the being beside him looks like a boy of no more than seventeen and yet is older than the city of Dunwall. He’ll panic again over the thought that, though he wants to protect the Outsider, care for him in the way that his superficial appearance would suggest he needs. The Outsider does not need that kind of care. More to the point, he doesn’t want it.

“I think you’ll be all right,” the Outsider says abruptly. “I see no ending for you here.”

Corvo turns a quizzical look on the Outsider. “Were you concerned?”

“It was a reassurance for you,” the Outsider says. 

They’ve stopped near the wall, a few steps from the back door that Corvo plans to enter as he makes his move. Corvo looks down on the Outsider, who seems remarkably small, when he’s not hanging suspended in a cloud of darkness. “I don’t need reassurance. I know my skill.”

It’s because Corvo spends too much time staring at the Outsider’s face that he knows he’s being glared at. “Sometimes you seem to forget that you are one of my marked men. I have…a certain investment in you.”

“In all of us, yes?”

“In you.” The ‘you idiot’ is implied. Corvo hears it loud and clear. 

“But you don’t play favorites,” Corvo says.

“I do not.”

Corvo holds up their joined hands. He raises one eyebrow. 

The Outsider continues his unblinking glare. Corvo’s heart knocks against his ribs as he considers--he is the center of attention. He, the man who never worshiped anything, is pinned to the wall by the only being in creation who can make him fall to his knees. “This is not favoritism.”

“So you’ve done this with Daud.”

He gets a small, irked sigh in response; it’s so very human that Corvo can’t help a chuckle at the Outsider’s expense. “This is beyond your limited comprehension.”

Corvo raises his other hand to touch the Outsider’s face, feeling the impossibly smooth skin under his rough hands, as if he’s touching a statue, perhaps, or a whale’s skin. “You’re beyond my comprehension,” he says. “And yet.”

The Outsider is motionless, the ever-present darkness swirling a little. Corvo can never quite tell if he’s welcoming the touch or simply permitting it. Either way, Corvo is grateful. Just the chance to touch the Outsider, to be so near that he can feel the searing presence of him in the Mark...it’s more than those who truly worship the Outsider have ever received. 

Carefully, as if he could somehow harm the Outsider, Corvo brushes his thumb over one sharp cheekbone. “You needn’t worry for me. I have my weapons, my skill...and your gifts.”

“You do have those,” the Outsider says. “And you have survived far worse than what awaits you in these walls.”

Corvo begins to withdraw his hand, but the Outsider catches it and holds Corvo’s hand there, against his cheek. Corvo waits, heart still pounding. It’s--rare, even now, for the Outsider to so openly display affection. The lonely god, Corvo has called him in the privacy of his heart, a being consigned to an eternity where he can only watch. 

Perhaps that’s what fascinates the Outsider. Corvo has willingly offered his hand, his life, his heart to the Outsider, asking nothing. Indeed, he’d tried to convince the Outsider to take back the Mark. Most who call upon the Outsider demand of him, plead with him, and Corvo hasn’t ever given a damn about any of that. 

“It is interesting,” the Outsider says, “that, as ever, I do not know what you will do now.” 

It’s a miracle that Corvo has begun to hear the inflections in the Outsider’s voice, the way in which he expresses so much in so few words. He has no idea how he’d ever found that voice a monotone. It’s the sound that calls to Corvo in his dreams, the voice that whispers his name, the most precious of all sounds. And yet, just now, Corvo does not want to hear it.

He bends and kisses the Outsider’s cold lips, lips that taste of salt and the sea. Corvo intended to keep it chaste and quick--he does, after all, have business--but the Outsider’s lips part, yielding, and Corvo decides that this is more important. He holds the Outsider as close as he can, striving to offer the comfort he is so rarely allowed to give, the worship he gives in the only way he knows how. And the Outsider welcomes it. 

“Go,” the Outsider says at last, stepping away from Corvo. He doesn’t look in the least disheveled or perturbed. Someday, Corvo would like to see that. But he’s a patient man. That day will come, and perhaps it will come when the Outsider doesn’t expect it. Wouldn’t that be interesting? It might truly catch the Outsider’s attention. 

Corvo turns to go, sure that the moment he blinks he’ll be back in the physical world again. At the last moment, he turns and locks eyes with the Outsider. He raises his hand to his mouth and kisses the Mark, and sees the Outsider shiver. 

And then he wakes up, opening his eyes. In a single instant, the Void is gone, the Outsider gone with it. Barely any time has passed. He’s being dragged on his back down the filthy paving of the alley, toward--oh, damn, someone’s about to stab him and dispose of his body. 

He kicks out at the man holding his leg and the man, caught off-guard, yelps as Corvo’s heel catches him in the arm. He lets go of Corvo and Corvo scrambles to his feet. Rather than actually sticking around to give the man another chance to hit him, Corvo Blinks onto the roof of the house beside them. The man yells in alarm, but Corvo is already running, getting out of sight.

That was unexpected, and Corvo’s head rather hurts, but he can’t find it in himself to regret the unexpected detour. He smiles, under the mask; all in all, there are worse ways for a day like this to go. He isn’t worried, even if he’s alone.

Well--no, he’s not alone. Corvo is certain that the Outsider is watching him, and, in his own strange way, worrying about him.

That’s enough for Corvo.


End file.
